


white noise

by slybrunette



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-05
Updated: 2009-10-05
Packaged: 2017-10-02 12:58:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slybrunette/pseuds/slybrunette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three hours ago, there had been a tornado watch and she'd used that as an excuse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	white noise

"What is that?"

His voice startles her and, accompanied by a second-long blink of the lights, Meredith nearly jumps from her position on the couch, covering quickly by readjusting and curling her legs underneath her body. He can't see her anyway, not until a moment later when he's slipped inside the living room.

The wind outside picks up again and she wonders if she remembered to close all the windows upstairs. Her hand twitches a little, suddenly fidgety, and she grabs the remote that's been rendered useless by the storm outside. The television lost its signal a few minutes ago, turning the screen to nothing but snow, a steady buzz of white noise that's for the most part managed to block out every other sound.

She finds it comforting. Alex, apparently, does not.

"That's not driving you crazy?" He asks, with a frown, but makes no move to turn it off, instead joining her on the couch. He doesn't live here anymore, and that's something she's been missing more and more as the weeks pass. Him and Izzie, even Lexie, and the comfort in routine of having a house full of people.

Three hours ago, there had been a tornado watch issued and she'd used that as an excuse.

"You live in a trailer," she'd said, into the phone, when he'd challenged her request. The sound of cars on wet roads had been audible. "And you're closer to here than there probably so just shut up and do it."

And he had, surprisingly, showing up at her door minutes later with Izzie in tow.

"Happy now?" He'd asked, ignoring the glare Izzie gave him as she half-nudged, half-elbowed him in the side before she stepped inside with a wide smile sent Meredith's way.

"I'll be happy if the power stays on and the heat keeps working," she'd replied, closing the door behind them with some force, gusty wind and cool temperatures taking the temperature down somewhere in the forties.

Flashforward to now, and it was, thankfully. Small favors and good luck and all that.

"Izzie asleep?" She asks, turning so that she's facing him instead of the television. Their room was still the same way as it was before Derek promptly decided to relocate them, and Meredith didn't really intend to do anything with it. It was a room that she had no use for, between the two of them.

"She said she was tired." Alex shrugs, like he could really care less, and she understands him enough to know that's the way he's deemed it necessary to act in the face of his actual feelings. He can't show them, he has to be complicated and build up walls, and she gets that, really, more than she'd like.

Meredith studies him, anyway, to let him know that she knows it's bullshit, before looking down at the hands in her lap, the one wrapped around the remote with a firm grip. Newsprint is smeared on the tips of her fingers, staining them charcoal, from when she'd tossed it in a pile to go out with the recycling, hands damp from sloppy pouring and tequila, and she realizes too late that it's on her white shirt now too.

With her eyes off of him, and maybe that's the important part, he adds, "She pushes too hard."

She resists the urge to lock eyes with him as she says, "I know."

"And if I say anything then I look like the bad guy."

"You're always going to be the bad guy," she says, dancing eyes, her best attempt of making light of the situation. His smirk is half-formed and far from genuine but it's there. She reaches a hand out, tentative, dropping the remote at her side and letting her fingers splay against his arm. They're not especially tactile people, but neither one of them flinches or shows any sign of unease.

He fixes her with a curious look. "Shepherd at the hospital still?" She nods her reply, not at all troubled by this fact. "Got any other surfaces you haven't christened?"

Not only does she get where he's going with that, but she moves that previously comforting hand and hits him in the shoulder with it. "I'm not drunk enough for that."

Alex's gaze drifts to the tequila bottle, out for the first time in too long, in the name of old times. "That's fixable."

"If you want to try and take Derek in a fight, sure."

"I'd win."

"No, you wouldn't."

"Ex-wrestler," he points out, and he would most likely have a point if any of this conversation was based in reality. But it's not. Because the days where they'd really consider going at it in whatever place was available have probably passed, and she's got Derek, and he's so in love with Izzie that it's ridiculous, even if he won't show it sometimes.

She gives him a raised eyebrow. "Emphasis on ex."

"It's like riding a bike," he swears, and empties the rest of the glass that's sitting on the coffee table. She isn't sure that's his but she doesn't say anything either.

The lights dim and return once more, and the millisecond of silence that comes from it draws his attention back to the television. "Seriously, why is this still on?"

Meredith laughs, mostly because it's bothering him so damn much, and relocates the remote to somewhere out of his reach unless he decides to lean over her. When she sobers from that, she tells him, "They say sometimes dead people communicate through it."

"Hoping O'Malley's going to phone home?" It's a joke, in very poor taste, and there's no way that he isn't aware of that, but they laughed at the funeral, a lot, and it saved her from crying so maybe this is just the way they have to be in order to function properly.

"I saw it in a movie once," is all she says, eyes on the television. She isn't hoping for anything actually, in fact the thought hadn't even occurred to her until she'd said it.

"I saw a talking pig in a movie once." Off her look, he amends, "I saw a commercial. Whatever."

There's a crack of thunder overhead, and the lights don't come back on this time, plunging them into absolute darkness and killing the snow that's been irking him so much. She lets this set in for a moment, bracing her hand on the arm of the couch like she's about to get up, but not quite going anywhere. "Candles?"

A soft blue glow lights him up as he opens his phone, glancing at the time in lieu of a working clock. "It's after eleven."

That's supposed to be an answer of some sort, she infers, though she's not sure precisely what that answer is. She decides on a no, her own limbs feeling heavy and tired from a long day; they've been working hard because of that merger, maybe ��" definitely -- too hard.

"Speaking of movies, I think I've seen one that starts this way," he says, returning his phone to the pocket of his jeans. She doesn't need to see his face to know there's an evil smirk on his face now.

"I don't think that's singular," she replies, because she certainly isn't a prude and isn't like she's never seen porn before. Or clichéd movies. They all end the same way.

"You'd be the expert."

That's met with a glare he can't see, but she doesn't even bother pretending that she's offended. He walked in on her and Derek having sex on the stairs and she knows that the stories that used to, maybe still do, circulate the halls of Seattle Grace aren't exactly of the vanilla kind. Nor does she care. "We should probably just go to bed," she decides, "We could use the sleep."

"Yeah," he says, after a long beat, standing and barely avoiding knocking into the coffee table. She does the same, carefully grabbing glasses off the table and relying on memory to guide her into the kitchen safely; it does. "Thanks, by the way," he calls out to her, probably from the stairs, just as she's setting the glasses into the sink.

She smiles but doesn't say 'you're welcome', figuring he's probably halfway up the stairs by now, and knowing that the thank you is rare enough on it's own.

Upstairs, she pads through the hallway, finding her own bedroom with relative ease. She's just shrugging out of her clothes when she hears soft giggling from the other room, Izzie, and it doesn't bother her the way it would sometimes, when they were here all the time. Instead, she's glad, almost relieved, to hear it.

Meredith has missed them more than she realized before, and there's a part of her that wonders if asking them to come back here is a step backwards from this grown-up thing they're doing, living on their own, couples instead of roommates, like adults instead of rushed med school students or whatever. She still feels like the latter these days, and more and more, with their little group down by one, she wants her friends close.

Thunder cracks once more, and she sets the alarm on her phone, placing it on the nightstand next to her and settling into bed, grateful at least for the excuse to have them back, even if it ends up just being temporary.


End file.
